Well-established power distribution systems exist throughout most of the United States, and other countries, which provide power to customers via power lines. Recently, such power distribution systems have been used to communicate data in a power line communications system (PLCS) Such systems may provide broadband communications of voice, video, audio, Internet and other data. I
Irrespective of the architecture of the PLCS, a method of communicating data between the power line and the conventional telecommunications network (e.g., a point of presence (POP) for the Internet) must be provided.
In one example PLCS embodiment, a backhaul point forms the gateway between the power line and conventional telecommunications medium and communicates with a plurality of downstream communication devices such as transformer bypass devices. The backhaul point and its plurality of communication devices (and their associated user devices) form a PLCS subnet. Depending on the placement (i.e., distance) of the backhaul point relative to the available conventional telecommunications network such as a fiber optic cable (which may be at the utility substation or elsewhere), it is sometimes impossible to directly connect the backhaul point to the fiber optic cable to provide communications with the network. In other words, the fiber optic cable may not be available where the backhaul point is installed, which generally means that additional fiber optic cable(s) must be installed. However, installing additional fiber optic cable can be an expensive and, in some instances, may not viable due to the existing infrastructure such as intersections and other obstacles.
Consequently, there is a need for technology to provide a communications link that communicatively couples a PLCS (such as one or more backhaul points) to a conventional telecommunications network that is economical, easy to implement, provides a high bandwidth, provides low latency, and that is reliable. These and other advantages are provided by various embodiments of the present invention.